Digital Puppetry
Howdy folks! Rant time ;) First I will apologize to anyone who might not like my opinion, but hey, it's only an opinion.
I'm writing this in response to the little banner add of the newest Dreamworks film shown right here on Live Journal (something like "Taming a Dragon"--sorry, I don't watch television, so most of my popular culture exposure is ( Read more... )
Couple of things; I really agree with you about Up. Just was it on Blu-ray and while it was stronger than most 3D in terms of emotionally interesting character animation and situation, the story was still pretty bad and a bit slap-dash.
Brad Bird is tops! I totally agree about Ratatouille. If I needed to make a choice for favorite CG animated film, it would be Rat. Really, it's the only good one IMHO (didn't say "great" though *wink*). I LOVED "The Iron Giant", a wonderful mixture of 2D and 3D. Plus the story, writing, animation, characters are all excellent. I have to add the nod to Frank and Ollie always makes me misty-eyed.
Most of all, you've reminded me that this is all art. Industry, yes, but it comes down to art! And the hope is that it will change like all art does. Thanks for that...it really does give hope.
I have a theory about why digital animation is so hard to believe; it's inorganic. It moves unlike reality (and getting worse,too), whereas we all see movement happening in real life constantly. It's very easy for our brains to understand that if something looks incorrect, we won't comprehend it as something natural.
An example is if something looks too perfect i.e. a totally symmetrical human face, it registers as unnatural. Pair this with hyperactive movements, and the result is totally unbelievable. PIXAR studios made a clever way around this; use toys and robots as the subjects! Those are already out of the norm as everyday movable objects, so our minds will bypass the logic. Remember in the first "Toys" film when the dog was chasing Woody and Buzz? It looked terrible! I don't think it was entirely the fault of the animator(s), rather they didn't consider realistic movement and behavior, but just wanted something to move.
Richard Williams, the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, made an interesting observation when asked to teach a seminar to some digital animators; none of them had any experience with figure or life drawing. Not one! Could this be part of the problem with modern 3D animation? When Walt Disney was gearing up to make Snow White, he and his lead animators knew that the characters would look rediculous without recreating natural movements in animation. The little animals and the Dwarfs, as well as the human characters needed to have convincing weight, gravity, and volume. Even the backgrounds were improved to give a realistic quality to the whole film. So non-animators were brought in to teach life drawing as well as watercolor/design. And look at the result! This is still one of the finest examples of expressive animation on film, and it's no coincidence that people still react the same today as they did 75 years ago.
This kind of innovative thinking is totally overlooked in modern animation. Why? It seems like such a logical approach. Storytelling is about getting the audience to understand. Great storytelling is about getting the audience to totally become absorbed, to really believe the situation. Books, movies, painting; it's all a way to express a story, mood or situation, at least on an emotional level. The best of these will blosom in our imagination and will live on through the audience.
I think maybe there's too much money involved in the industry of animation anymore to regard interesting or pure expression, so the art is being pushed aside for profit. Profit is important, otherwise where else are you going to get financing? There needs to be a balance.
Art comes from within, right? If films are a product of the people making them, then that's where the successes or failures are born. It seems like CG animation is motivated by money and technology, therefore making mere products like lattes and cars. Assembly line results. The producers of CG films need to take a very big step back and realize that if they ever want to make something really important, they need to make art again. I'm not saying that there aren't artists in the field of digital animation, but the result of so many boring, forgettable movies and shorts comes from something other than art.
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